International garden

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Intercultural garden rose fragrance in the park at Gleisdreieck in Berlin, Germany

International gardens , including intercultural gardens , are garden projects that focus on concepts of intercultural learning , international understanding and integration . The idea of ​​the International Gardens developed in parallel in several large cities around the world, such as Buenos Aires, New York City and Toronto, in the early 1990s.

Idea and goals

Gardening and leisure activities in intercultural gardens create social contact between refugees , migrants and locals and thereby promote understanding between people from different cultures, the integration of refugees, migrants and immigrants as well as the preservation and use of the diversity of cultivated plants.

In Germany, the goals of the intercultural gardens are, among other things, that the solidarity that Germans have expressed in theory, especially with war and political refugees, is consolidated through contact with these and other migrants in everyday life, and that migrants and refugees initiate integration processes of their own accord participate and be supported in it.

The gardens are ideal places to meet, because there you can experience the nature we all share first hand and many migrants and refugees come from smallholder backgrounds, so that they can apply and contribute their knowledge here.

Intercultural gardens consist of individual parcels on which vegetables and herbs (including species and varieties from the countries of origin that are little known in Germany) are grown in an environmentally friendly manner and for personal use. There are also communal areas for children's games, events and meetings.

The gardens are often a point of contact for additional activities and learning opportunities for professional integration, for example through visits and internships at companies in the horticultural and environmental sector, promotion of professional orientation in the horticultural and environmental sector, as well as social integration through neighborhood help and family care, learning the German language , Accompanying authorities, visits and contact with educational institutions, documentation and public relations.

Development to movement

Germany

The pilot project of the intercultural gardens came into being in 1996 on the initiative of immigrant non-German families in Göttingen. The “International Gardens” association was founded in 1998. It all started with the creation of three gardens. Today there are five, in which families from almost 20 countries and different religions work together.

In the meantime, further gardens based on the Göttingen model have been created in Germany, so that one could almost speak of a new social movement. Over 80 intercultural garden projects in the whole of Germany currently exist (beginning of 2009), another 60 are being set up. The Interkultur Foundation in Munich, a foundation of the foundation anstiftung & ertomis, has set up the “Network Intercultural Gardens”. She coordinates the meanwhile more than 100 garden projects nationwide, advises on questions about project development, public relations and fundraising, gives financial start-up assistance in individual cases and moderates the "Research Network for Intercultural Gardens".

Italy

An intercultural community garden has existed in Bolzano since 2010, and a further garden was added in 2013.

Switzerland

In Switzerland there are four intercultural gardens near the major cities of Zurich, Bern and Basel. The establishment of further intercultural gardens is being planned.

Awards

The intercultural gardens have already received several awards. Some examples:

  • 2001: Active Citizenship Award (Federal Winner)
  • 2002: Integration Prize from the Federal President
  • 2005: 1st prize from the Lower Saxony Environmental Foundation
  • 2006: Göttingen Peace Prize from the Dr. Roland Röhl (together with the Interkultur Foundation)
  • 2010: Quality label Werkstatt N-Projekt (Sustainability Council)
  • 2010: Utopia Award

eviction

The Intercultural Garden Rosa Rose in 10247 Berlin (Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district) was cleared on March 14, 2008.

Background and meaning

The development of international gardens - similar to the development of workers' or poor gardens at the end of the 19th century - must be seen against the background of increasing urbanization in the 20th century. Urban sociologists have long assumed that the process of urbanization and farming are mutually exclusive. As Christa Müller and other researchers show, however, towards the end of the 20th century in several large cities around the world, such as Buenos Aires, New York City and Toronto, community and neighborhood gardens developed as a new form of urban subsistence economy . Responsible for this are, on the one hand, social processes such as the increasing need for impoverished city dwellers to fall back on this form of production in order to be able to survive in the city, and on the other hand, a crisis in large cities themselves, if, for example, land expected to be built is not used for years or decades or if, caused by industrial change, the previous use of certain areas no longer applies and a new use is not yet implemented or financially viable.

literature

  • Christa Müller (Ed.): Urban Gardening . About the return of the gardens to the city . oekom , Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-86581-244-5 .
  • Christa Müller: Put down roots in a foreign country. The international gardens and their importance for integration processes (with practical part); ecom - Society for Ecological Communication, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-928244-82-5 .
  • Christa Müller: Intercultural Gardens - Urban Places of Subsistence Production and Diversity . In: German journal for municipal sciences - The "green" city - urban qualities through open space development. 1/2007, pp. 55-67, DIFU , Berlin, ISSN  1617-8203 .
  • Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen: Under the garbage in the fields. Community Gardens in New York City , Helmer, Königstein im Taunus 2004, ISBN 3-89741-156-3 (= Foundation Women's Initiative: Concepts, Materials. Volume 2)

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Südtirol Urban Gardening: Green activities in urban areas . Website August 25, 2016, accessed April 25, 2020.
  2. ↑ Intercultural Gardens Switzerland
  3. ↑ Rosa Rose Evidence Eviction